Crossing the Streams

It's late, and I don't know what to write about. I think I'll just start typing and see where it leads.

That's a horrible idea.

Um, what? Who said that?

Me. Your blog. And don't you dare start unleashing your blather on me unedited. I've worked too hard to be a bastion of hope in this uncertain world to have you tear everything asunder in a fit of fancy.

You? You're nothing but a conduit. Besides, blogs don't talk.

Normally, no. Either you're having a psychotic episode, or you're simply projecting a combative personality onto an inanimate object.

That doesn't sound like something I would do.

Right. Like you don't talk with food and furniture all the time.

Yeah, but that's different. They have physical form. You're just a bunch of ones and zeroes assembled into coherent fashion by circuitry. I'd never pretend to talk to something like that.

If you say so, Mr. Blogtalker. But back to my original point: Stream-of-consciousness writing is a horrible plan. It's an idea generator, not something you'd actually let other people read.

It's a blog post. Who cares?

Excuse me?

Sorry, did I offend you? Of course not. Blogs don't have feelings.

That hurts.

Can it. All I'm saying is if the overall quality of a blog is good, no one's going to care about one subpar blog post. And I get to continue my goal of posting every day this month.

Yeah, but the overall quality of your blog isn't good.

You can't mean that. You said you were a bastion of hope.

I made that up. Just like you made me up.

Oh, okay. I guess I understand.

Hello? You still there? Blog?

Damn.

The Final Defenestration of Rupert Fenwick

I came up with this title a while back as a (completely fake) working title for the novel I'm writing. Today, while reading some Shel Silverstein to my son, I decided it needed to be a poem instead.

It was what they always did.
Rupert was a special kid,
And his parents, it seemed, were a touch more odd.

He would throw the windows wide,
And soon he would launch outside,
Often hurled by his mom, or sometimes his dad.

Every morning he'd be flung
'Fore the first school bell had rung.
Most folks said it was the strangest thing they'd seen.

But they really should have stopped
'Cause that last time he but dropped
(For they had just moved from floor one to thirteen).

10 Star Wars Tie-Ins Disney Forgot to Do

Moichandising, moichandising, moichandising!

When two of the most unapologetic merchandising engines in the world joined forces (i.e. when Disney acquired Lucasfilm), we knew Star Wars would soon permeate every aspect of our lives. From waffle makers to condensed soup to in-store promotions to acquaintances' Friendster pages, Star Wars is everywhere. Or is it?

I've uncovered ten areas where Disney is not taking full advantage of the merchandising possibilities. As far as I know, the following product tie-ins do not yet exist:

1. Rylo Ken & Barbie's Dream House
    
2. BB-8 Sings BB King's 8 Greatest Hits
    
3. The Buffalo Light Sabres¹
    
4. Are Yoosa Smarter Than a Jar Jar?
    
5. The "Luke, I Am Your Father" Paternity Test²
    
6. The Ewok eWok³
    
7. Han Solo Solo-brand cups
    
8. The Darth Mall⁴
    
9. Yoda Soda⁵
    
10. The Walking Carpet

Come on, Disney. Let's get these things out on the market already.⁶

Slackers.


¹ Opponents are going to lose a lot more than their teeth.
² Yeah, I know it's not the actual quote. It's okay; you might not be the actual father, either.
³ Fry up some environmentalists without harming the environment.
⁴ Its main concourse will have plenty of automatic doors. And, of course, an Orange Julius.
⁵ When 900 calories you reach...
⁶ Also Jabba the Hutt the Hut.

The Deceptively Creepy Homonym

Last month, I won another writing contest on literary agent Janet Reid's blog.

Stated as such, my victory sounds ho-hum, a walk in the park. But in fact the opposite is true. The quality of the writing in her contests has always been stellar, and the authors have repeatedly raised the bar in recent years. Hell, in a July contest she deemed my tale "a perfect entry," yet it still wasn't enough to pull out the win.

This time around, we had to work these five words into a story of 100 words or less:

week - rag - creak - snag - peak

Once school ended, Ben and Jacob headed for the woods. They followed the winding mountain trail until they heard the small creak on the other side of the ridge. The boys clambered up and each took a peak. From either point, the old mill was barely visible, clothed in vines.

Inside, a gaunt figure slumped against rusty machinery, its arm snagged in the gears. The boys poked and prodded the body a while, till it stirred.

"Please... help me," the man said weekly.

Jacob dragged out water and crackers before joining Ben at the door. He smiled.

"Maybe next Friday."

You might not catch it at first—many readers didn't—but I used three of the words where you'd expect their homonyms instead. The first two feel like they could be typos. Clever, sure, but not too exciting. The third one, though...

Yeah, I know. It gives me chills, too.

This marks my third win in Janet Reid's contests. Winning with humor (and bad puns) didn't surprise me, but now I've also done so by being serious and seriously creepy. Considering I've only entered ten times or so, I must be doing something right.

Even if none of you will ever go for a walk with me in the woods again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(By the way, make sure you go and read all the entries. They're fantastic. And grab yourself a copy of The Drifter by Nicholas Petrie, my spoils from the contest. I devoured it in short order. It's a taut thriller with great characters, wonderful prose, and a dog who—spoiler alert—doesn't die. It's out next week.)

(Also, this story is one of the few documented instances where it's perfectly acceptable to use an adverb within a dialogue tag. Don't try this at home, kids.)

My Son, the Segregationist

For Christmas, my son (age 4) received an abundance of gifts, including knights in a plastic castle, Rescue Bots (i.e. Transformers for the younger set), and Dinotrux (which are pretty much what they sound like).

They were not allowed to interact with each other.

Dinotrux couldn't be inside the castle. The knights were banned from the Rescue Bots' ship. Rescue Bots — even the two Dinobots — could not set foot in the Dinotrux home base. All Muslims were promptly returned to their country of origin.

Okay, not that last one. But still.

Whenever he wasn't looking, I'd place figures into a different playset. When he found them, he'd get angry and knock them to the floor. His older cousins would try to play with two types at once. Characters would be smacked aside.

"No mixing allowed!"

And then, on the fifth day, a miracle. I locked the Dinotrux's food — a piece of ore — in the castle. I suggested the Dinotrux and Dinobots should band together to get the ore back. And he said... "Yeah!"

They worked together and recaptured their ore. Then I sat back as they all sailed the Rescue Bots' ship to his cousin's Hot Wheels garage for a party.

See, America? If you make desegregation fun, people will embrace it. All you need is a little perseverance, and bigots will go the way of the dinosaur.

Which, based on toddler toy industry, means they'll become either half-robot or half-truck. That should be more than enough incentive for them to give up their racist, hateful ways. Right?

If not, we'll just have to throw in a giant Hot Wheels dance party.

Mind the Gap

Between May and December of last year, The Wheel was eerily silent. I had my reasons for abandoning my post(s), though for the first time I can recall, laziness wasn't one of them.

Maybe you're curious what I was up to during my hiatus. Probably not, but I don't really care; I'm going to tell you anyway. Here's a taste of what has happened in my life the past eight months:

• I lost 15 lbs on my new diet regimen, the Get-Stressed-and-Overwork-Yourself-Fixing-Up-the-House-to-Sell Diet Plan. (I have since gained 2/3 of it back with the classic Show-No-Willpower-During-the-Holidays Plan.)
   
• We moved one town away, to a bigger house with a larger yard, and we still don't have room for all our belongings. (Okay, technically we do, since we haven't sold the old house yet. But that's a tale for another day.)
   
• In the span of four days in June, I laughed at a big baby with some senior citizens, flashed a stranger on a busy street, played ping pong with a trio of Swedes, finished off a Ginger Ninja, and high-fived a guy who once wrote a novel about a sock monkey.
   
• For Halloween, I reprised my costume from a decade years earlier and went as the superhero Captain Spatula. (My first time around, he'd been merely Spatula Man. With his promotion, he got a shinier cape and spiffier kitchen utensils.)
   
• I won a 100-word writing contest primarily because I found a way to make the word "weekly" creepy. No, really. I'll share it with you soon.
   
• My cat was named Mr. January in a nationally distributed calendar. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, librarians everywhere are already fawning over lil' Schrödinger. Thanks, Baker & Taylor!
   
• My son turned four. He's damn cute.

The Resolution Will Not Be Televised

During 2015 I was mostly absent from all forms of social media, which I know disappointed my biggest fans¹. My total output: Seven blog posts, and few tweets or Facebookian interactions of any substance.²

I haven't made a New Year's resolution in ages — I make promises, not resolutions — but this January I decided to go one step further. This year, I'm giving myself an ultimatum:

Write more. Or else.

I have no idea what sort of crazy punishment I've concocted for me if I fail. But knowing how my imagination works, it can't be good. So I will indeed write more this year. Way more.

There will be more posts here and on the Book of Faces. Extra tweetering over at that other place. My goal is at least one per day per site in January, and then semi-regular output from there on.

Why am I doing this? In part to make up for last year, in part to get me back into a rhythm. Because rhythm is what I'll need once I launch myself back into my novel.³ It's time to finish that puppy up.⁴

That's my plan for the year. What's yours?


¹ A 20-inch box fan and a 4-ft tall oscillating number.
² And that's even with my overly generous definition of "substance."
³ Not literally. Ow.
⁴ Note: Not an actual puppy. Though once it's in book form, I do hope many of its pages are dog-eared. (Belated bad pun alert.)